


Walking the lines of my scar

by TooManyChoices



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Grieving John, I nearly made myself cry, John thinks Sherlock's dead, John's a bit broken, M/M, Missing Scene, Romance, set between s2 and s3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:38:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4181865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooManyChoices/pseuds/TooManyChoices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i> "The things you couldn't say, say them now, John" </i><br/>There's things John can't talk about, not to Ella... Not to anyone</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“The things you couldn’t say then… Say them now, John.” Ella’s voice was soft and encouraging._

_I shake my head and refuse as diplomatically as I can. How can I say the words out loud when I know nobody will understand? Hell, even I don’t understand._

Dear Sherlock,

Not sure why I’m writing this, to be honest, you being dead and all. But Ella’s suggested that one way or another, I need to get the shit that’s in my head out, or I’m not going to be able to properly move forward, with Mary.

And I need to. You’d understand that, right? That if I don’t find a way to let you go, you may as well have dragged me off that bloody roof with you.

So this is me, writing a letter to a dead man. Not because you’ll ever read it, but because I need to find a way to stop playing stuff on an endless loop inside my head.

They don’t understand, if there was nothing going on between us, why I’m still grieving. Greg (Lestrade… you git), Molly, Harry, the rest; they were all great for the first six months. But slowly, and with a greater or lesser degree of frustration they all told me to ‘get over it.’ Molly probably held on the longest. She seemed to understand that you’d single-handedly brought me back from the dead and without you by my side I’m like a ghost, forever doomed to walk the Earth alone.

Sorry, that sounded a bit melodramatic. Let me get back onto what I wanted to say.

There’s nobody I can talk to about this, Sherlock. We didn’t talk about it while you were here, and even if you weren’t dead, we probably still wouldn’t. But the ghost of you keeps climbing into bed with me and Mary, and it has to stop. It’s got to… or I’ll go mad with the guilt I’m feeling.

Remember my nightmares? Remember when I used to shout so loud Mrs Turner’s married ones would complain? Remember how we got them to stop? That’s what’s haunting me.

I wonder if you’d remember how it all began. That cold winters night when I was finally defeated by my own demons. Would you remember that dark night when I finally surrendered and stood in my underwear, shivering with cold, and fear, and adrenaline at your bedside? Remember how you turned over under your blankets? I remember; I remember how in the dim light, you raked me over with your eyes, deducing my soul and then soundlessly lifted the edge of your sheet and wordlessly beckoned me in.

I remember that I came willingly. Too vulnerable, tired, and scared to overthink the situation, what it could mean, _would_ mean; just grateful not to be alone in my room at the top of the stairs. I was just so thankful that I could hear another person breathing, chasing away the spectres of my fallen friends in a foreign desert.

I recall lying there, under the sheets, warming quickly but still shaking with the aftermath of that dream. I could sense you beside me, so silent and yet I could hear your mind working as if there were gears rattling around in your head. I never understood that, Sherlock, how you and I could understand each other so completely without a word being said. I never had that with anyone else, and I certainly don’t have it with Mary.

I’m not sure how long I lay there before I turned on my side, away from you. It didn’t seem long, but time has a way of changing perceptions. Were you waiting for that, Sherlock, for me to roll over? Was that your plan? Was it your signal to scoot up behind me, slide a long arm under my pillow and gather me against you?

I know you felt me tense, I’m sure you expected it and had the plan all worked out in your head. What would you have done if I’d pulled away and out of your bed? Would you have let me go… coaxed me back? We’ll never know because I didn’t pull away, did I? I let you hold me, snug against your chest. Curled up behind me, your ridiculously long legs stretched against the backs of my thighs, and both of us ignoring the way your public hair was pressed against my arse cheeks.

Spooning; that’s what they call it, Sherlock. It’s what women expect their partners to do on sleepy morning lie-ins. It’s what I’ve done with women when I was lucky enough to get invited to stay the night. It’s _not_ what flat-mates are supposed to do.

God it felt good. There… I’ve said it. It felt fucking fantastic to be held by you. That’s what kept me there when my British, conservative, _not gay_ sensibilities were trying to get me out of that bed. The poor, vulnerable, exhausted John Watson stayed because being held like that by you was possibly the most intimate, sensual thing I’d ever experienced.

Mary doesn’t hold me like that. Even after the nightmares (they’re back, by the way). She rubs my back and says _there, there_ in soothing tones. But I wish to God that she’d just somehow _KNOW_ that I need her to curl up behind me and hold me like you used to. But I can’t ask, because then I’d have to explain why.

I’ll be honest with you, Sherlock, if you’d have stopped there, I don’t think I’d be struggling so badly. If you’d just fucking _held_ me, I think I’d have been able to rationalise it all away as some sort of post-nightmare weakness. But you didn’t, did you? You had to push the fucking line.

Just when I was starting to relax into your arms, you couldn’t resist the opportunity to take those long musician’s fingers of yours and have a nice long tactile feel of my scar. Nobody does that, Sherlock, but you did. What’s more, the way you did it…..Jesus Christ, it’s like you were reading my DNA through my skin.

It should have freaked me out; it does when anyone else touches it. But you were so gentle, so careful. Tracing first with fingertips and then thumbs, testing how the skin moved and resisted. I could tell you were comparing the feel of the scar to that of the skin around it, walking the lines with your fingertips. Then, once you were done, you lay a flat palm over the mark, as if to obscure it. I though that’s what you were doing, wondering how I’d look without the deformity. But then you kissed the top of your hand where it lay over the ruined skin.

What made you do that, Sherlock? To this day, it doesn’t make any sense to me. I wish I could ask you. Of all the things I wish I had the chance to ask, that’s the one that preys on my mind.

I know I shuddered, I may have actually whimpered. It was just so intimate, and I was confused. But you saw that, you saw everything, didn’t you. You chuckled low in your throat and smoothed your hands down over my arms, firmly enough to be comforting without being construed as arousing.

And while we’re on that topic, since we’re being honest with each other… that was about the time that you shifted your hips away from me. Was it my imagination (or my idle hope, perhaps) that my reaction may have affected you? Is that why you put some space between us? If it was… thank you. I’m reasonably sure that you spooned up behind me, naked, was about my limit that night. I doubt I would have reacted well to your erect cock nudging my arse, despite all the other scenarios I’ve imagined in the months since.

Because I have imagined it, Sherlock; so help me, I have. I’ve imagined that I was as brave as you always thought me to be. I’ve played out scenarios where, instead of us settling down and drifting to sleep together, I’d turned in your arms and pressed my lips against yours. I’ve played out scenes where your fingers continue their exploration of my skin, moving down my chest, teasing at my navel before wordlessly asking permission to breach the elastic of my underwear.

In the dark of my room, with my girlfriend beside me, I’ve imagined our bodies tangling together, warm and yielding in some places, firm and hot in others. There have been times, Sherlock, when I’ve been afraid of calling out your name in place of Mary’s. There’s nobody else in the world I can share that shameful secret with except you. God, how I wish I’d been brave.

Would you have wanted me to be brave, I wonder? Or were you as afraid as I was, taking refuge in the safety of friendship and never daring to reach for more. We’ll never know.

God I miss you, I miss what we were, and I miss what, eventually, I think we might have been. I miss the cozy nights at 221B, and the frantic running through the streets of London. I miss the fingers in the fridge and the violin at 3am. I miss your wild hair and that freckle on your neck.

Ella said this would help, she was wrong. I’ll never be over you, but maybe I can be beside you. Maybe if I’m careful, and Mary never realises, I can sometimes pretend you’re curled behind me, warm, and lean and pale. And I can feel your fingers on my skin and your laugh at my back. And you’ll chase the nightmares away.

Can you do that for me, Sherlock? Can you keep the nightmares away?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deep in the pocket of Sherlock's tatty clothes, discarded after his rescue from Serbia, Anthea finds a handwritten note.  
> It was never sent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to enthusiastic requests (what is wrong with this fandom, that we love to be hurt) I've extended this to another chapter.  
> Now I don't know if there's more.

_Hand-written note tucked in the bottom of Sherlock’s pocket, found by Anthea upon Sherlock’s return from Serbia._

John,

Oh John, how I wish this letter need not be written.

It feels odd to put these words on paper, not knowing if it will reach you and not quite sure if it was best that it didn’t. But you deserve the truth; I owe you that, even now when it may not matter.

I’m not sure how to even begin, except to say I’m sorry and to beg your forgiveness for the shock that you will no doubt feel on receipt of this note.

You see, John, rumours of my death are, as they say, greatly exaggerated, at least for the moment. I don’t have the luxury of being able to explain the details, only to say I’m sorry, and I had no choice.

Your letter, smuggled to me by Mycroft’s PA amongst his latest papers, makes it clear that I may have overestimated the ease with which you would move past my demise.

I saw you as the strong one, you see. The steady hand at my back, the gun pointed resolutely, the stubborn tolerance of my continual vagaries. Quite honestly, John, I thought you’d be well rid of me.

But perhaps I’ve been wrong (That statement alone makes me regret writing this note). Perhaps I left more of an impression on you than I’d ……….. _note ends abruptly_

 

_A second page follows, the pages are dotted with brownish red smears._

I’ve misjudged the situation badly, John. My brother (who I now concede is rarely wrong) said that caring is not an advantage. It appears he may have been right.

You see, John, I’ve made a mistake, and unless I’m very much in error, a fatal mistake. Following your letter, I’ve been making all efforts to try and get home. I’ve pressed my luck one too many times, taken one too many shortcuts and my carelessness has caught me out.

So, in the vain hope that my belongings make their way back to England, I’ll take this opportunity to set a few final things right, and perhaps set your mind a little more to rest in the process.

They say that people regret that they don’t get to share final words with loved ones. Perhaps this is our chance. I’m trying to look at it that way. It’s helping, I think.

I’m sorry your nightmares have returned. Upon reading, that line looks superficial, as if I’m writing ‘the weather is fine, how are you?’ But truly, John, I’m sorry for your suffering. I’d clearly not attributed any action by me as contributing to their easing. If a few nights nestled at your back were somehow a panacea to your demons, then I’m glad, and sorry that I can’t be there to soothe you now.

You say you are haunted by the meaning of the kiss upon my own hand, where it lay against your back. The reason is simple, and I’m surprised you didn’t deduce it (have I taught you so little). I was expressing my gratitude to the scar, John. That memory of trauma that troubles you so much was my saviour. Without that wound, you would not have been under my touch that night. It brought you to me. Remember that when you look at it in the mirror; that I was forever thankful for that tangle of puckered skin.

I cannot…….. _again, the words end in a scrawl._

_Another page_

They’ve moved me, John. I no longer know where I’m being held, which means any chance of escape is virtually gone. This is likely to be the last opportunity for me to put pen to paper, so I’m honour bound to make it count for something.

After reading your note over and over to remind me why I struggle to survive, I beg you to forgive me for surrendering now to recklessness one last time and say what I need to wash my soul clean.

You say you wish you had been brave that night. You are the bravest man I have known, John Watson. Far braver than me, and I’m coming to think a good bit smarter too. You were always the better man, John, and I am made greater for your part in my life.

You ask me why I moved away from you on that dark and emotion-laden night, whether I wish you’d followed my movements and pressed for more. You know the answer to that already John. You were always in lock-step with me, barely a pace behind me at every turn. So, in much the same way that you had reached your limits; so had I. Trust your instincts, John, they’ll never lead you astray.

Do I wish we’d been more, had more, done more? Quite simply, yes; but time caught us out. I don’t believe in reincarnation, but perhaps we’d have had the time we needed in another life. Perhaps in that other life, we’d have bridged that ever narrowing gap after a case, your hands had lingered a little longer on my skin after patching me up, and perhaps, at long last, we could have given Mrs Hudson back that second bedroom. Just know that I did want it, John.

You made me better, John, and I wish there was something I could say to ease your pain. But I was never good with feelings, any that I did have were for you. We just didn’t get our chance.

You have that chance with Mary now, John. Take it. Banish the bad dreams, let me be truly dead when you receive this note and lay me to rest. Live for us, John.

Live for me.

Yours, always

Sherlock

**Author's Note:**

> Now with added sequel.


End file.
